They say that learning a language can help you to avoid degenerative brain diseases in later life. This is surely a good thing. Not, however, if the brain in question is turned into a melted ball of mozzarella di bufala earlier in life as a consequence of having too many idioms flying about its neural pathways causing havoc with communication.
I am simultaneously blessed and cursed by my ability to understand languages relatively quickly (it goes with the territory of the work I do, plus the Jedi powers I've possessed since adolescence) and my natural desire to understand what is going on and communicate with people helps/forces me to speak something resembling the native tongue of the country I happen to be in before I resort to English*.
Also, something peculiar happens to me and I am often initially incapable of using English. I find this fascinating, despite understanding why it happens, as my first language really shouldn't escape me, ever. But escape me it does and I end up speaking a bizarre mixture of languages in the nearest accent I can jab at in the hope of getting the message across. Sometimes I speak English with a weird "foreign" accent (see Eddie Izzard's smersh agent impression), especially in Europe, as it seems to work better. Other times I manage to converse in a combination of the limited grasp of native words I have, a bit of understanding, a lot of repetition, hand gestures, laughter and patient shop-keepers. That last method is my favourite.
The problem often is that although I have two genuine, fluent languages that I can use, I have several others that I have learned to the point necessary to get by in - because I've lived in that country for a little while and made an effort, or I've been there for a week or two and made the effort, or I've just got there and I'm trying - the ultimate of which will be my instinctive default response.**
This wasn't too bad when all my travels were limited to Europe as there tend to be crossovers, but the last place I learned to speak in was Vietnam.
I fondly remember standing at a kiosk in Poland, just beginning to grasp the basics, being elated at understanding a question put to me and cheerily lurching into my affirmative response of,
"Sí! ....er Tak! Yes."
The "Sí" being the Spanish I had been using for 2 years prior to moving to Poland; the "Tak" being the actual Polish for "yes"; the "Yes" just to make sure and also to give me something to cling onto. You can almost feel the different mental cogs whirring in this kind of situation. I was privvy to a slightly stranger linguistic incident today.
I had a lovely afternoon. I arrived in Napoli, Italia, I got to my hotel without being mugged***, I found out from the very helpful woman on reception what I should do with my few hours and where I could eat the best pizza, then set out to explore the old quarter. In many ways, I was returned to my first travelling days of inter-railing round Iberia ten and a half years ago when I had tentative knowledge of Spanish (after a ten-week beginner's course) and was wandering around Bilbao wondering why I couldn't understand anything (it was all in Basque). Napoli happens to be very similar to Bilbao in numerous ways, including a street in the old town that looks and smells identical. I smiled and missed CC, my faithful travelling companion of the day, who is now all settled on the other side of the world.
I located the pizza restaurant - the famed Pizzeria Sorbillo - which was not difficult as there were hoards of pizza-starved people outside. Luckily, there was a smaller branch of the same a little further down the Via Tribunali. I managed to communicate, in my idiosyncratic manner, with a middle-aged woman and she instructed me to go inside and leave my name. I did so in Italian and amazingly understood all the Italian that came back at me (with a Napoli soft -ci "shi" accent), then waited in the street watching hungrily through the window as they prepared their fare. Once inside, I followed the advice that I had been given: Margherita is the only real option (there is a vast pizza menu, but I ignored it) and was most pleased with my choice. At first, I wasn't that convinced by its brilliance, but as I worked through it, with my piccola Nastro Azzurro to help, I was converted. Dough, tomato, mozzarella and basil, stone-baked, delivered hot: devoured. Yum.
Content, I got the bill and left. All communication in Italian (actual Italian, I know the ordering-food bits, of course) left me feeling a bit better about my Babelfish® being in place.
I ambled a bit more about the Centro Storico feeling decidedly full and sleepy and in need of a caffe. A macchiato was had opposite el Duomo, also acquired entirely in Italian. I know this isn't exactly the equivalent of the FCE, but remember the first time you went into a café in another country and fumbled over the words? Well, exactly.. It's still incredible when you try something you're not entirely convinced is going to work and it does, basic or not. I was semi-tempted to try conversation with the owner of the bar, but decided against it. Baby steps.
A bit more pootling led me to a slightly dodgier end of the street - circumvented - and back down on the other side and into the elected Random Museum of Naples AKA Museo del TESORO di SAN GENNARO (capitals as per name on sign). This contained vast quantities of precious metals honed into saintly figures and chalices, beautifully decorated ceilings, a secret entrance into the cathedral (closed at that point in the day), the blood of San Gennaro himself (in a glorious golden container, not just lying about the place CSI-style) and a bored and chatty security guard.
I get to the confusing linguistic event of the day. Bored and Chatty Security Guard decided to talk to me. I managed to clear the first general conversational hurdle, which prompted him to ask me, in surprise, if I spoke Italian.
"Un po. Parlo espagnole e comprendo un po de Italiano, pero non parlo buono" (Is that anything resembling your language, Italians?)
I could see him calculating the likelihood of being able to have a meaningful conversation with me of any kind and bravely launching into Social Interaction: Level I.
"Is this your first time here in Napoli?" x 2 (I'm translating as I haven't a clue how to write it)
Now, as I mentioned earlier, simple responses that you use everyday are the ones that stick the most. Particularly short answers: yes and no, for example.
I managed to bite back the first "vâng" (Vietnamese for "yes") and struggle out a "si" (my brain obviously doesn't allow me to revert to Spanish despite it being the most similar).
"te piacce?" ("do you like it?")
Answering becomes more complicated when you actually have to consider the question. I decided to go with the best answer. It came out too quickly, which meant that I caught myself a little, but not quick enough. "Sung" was the result (si + vâng). He looked confused. I managed a "si" to cover my tracks and then to make everything ok blurted out "la pizza es muy buona!" and chuckled heartily. He laughed in relief that he wasn't going to have to deal with an idiot, or at least only with an idiot who has good taste in food, patted me on the shoulder and then went to talk to some real Italian speakers.
He came back for more after a while and actually managed to prompt, amongst other languages, some Catalan, which rendered us both bewildered. He left me alone after that...
This broke the seal, however and despite the initial urges to say "vâng" and "không" I've plunged onward, managed to have a long, circular conversation about cards and envelopes (new italian word: busta), follow two lots of directions and buy a train ticket (during the last one I did resort to English for the travel agent's sake).
En fin: dementia I will avoid, but perhaps nobody will be able to tell the difference as I will be gibbering in a variety of languages, making half of it up and delivering it all in the local accent of choice.
Allora...
*This is partly to do with my resolute stubbornness and partly to do with an innate dislike of any arrogance that assumes every other person in the world should speak that particular lingua franca. They can, generally, and to a better standard than I can master their language, but still....
**It may be worth noting here that these words also come out when I first return to the UK as they are functional and trip off the tongue without thought. They are the simple, one-word responses like "yes" "no" "here?" "this" etc
***This was not my prejudice but that of everyone else I've told, including Napolitanos, that I'm coming here. Although now, after living in Asia where nothing can happen to a westerner unless you really misbehave, I seem to have been catapulted back to my first ventures abroad and belief that Europe is the most dangerous continent on the planet....
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